


Incognito

by fromaLongLineofTVDetectives



Series: Making Do [3]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Established Relationship, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11265975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromaLongLineofTVDetectives/pseuds/fromaLongLineofTVDetectives
Summary: Jack accompanies Aunt Prudence to London and spends time with Fisher and Stanley families in December of 1929. Marriage is on everyone's mind but Phryne's.





	1. Dear Prudence

**Author's Note:**

> This timeline is different from the one in which my American case fics take place, and is AU in the assumption that Jack and Phryne consummated their relationship after 3x3.

* * *

“Sir?” 

“Sir.” 

“Sir!” 

The voice grew more insistent with each repetition. Jack was drowsy. He had pulled his deck chair into the sun to read, then promptly fell asleep — the tropical heat and steady roll of the waves no match for the Highly Recommended author who had penned the words that desired his attention. 

“Your aunt, sir. Mrs. Stanley. She requires your assistance.” 

Jack opened his eyes. 

The waiter made a polite bow and retreated. 

Over his left shoulder, Jack could make out the form of Prudence Stanley in the adjoining first class lounge. Unsteady on her feet, she planted and then re-planted her cane in defiance of each pitch as she searched in vain for Jack. He rose from his chair and went to her aid. 

“Mrs. Stanley,” he offered in greeting, giving her his arm and guiding her to a broad, upholstered chair in the shade. 

“Inspector,” she countered, “This ruse only works if you call me Aunt Prudence in public.” 

“Yes, well, I’m not entirely certain that the ruse, as you call it, is entirely necessary.” 

“That’s because it’s not for _your_ benefit, but for mine.” 

* * *

No more than a week after Phryne left Australia with her father, Prudence Stanley had fallen seriously ill. Jack heard the news by telephone from Mr. Butler, who had heard the news from the hospital, calling Wardlow in search of Mrs. Stanley’s local next of kin, who, of course, was not presently local. 

Jack sent telegrams to Penang and Calcutta — Phryne’s most probable locations at that moment — then took off for the hospital himself, playing the role, for all intents and purposes, of Phryne’s dutiful husband. Prudence Stanley — though afflicted with a failing heart valve and poor circulation — did not miss the significance of his actions. 

Weeks passed. More telegrams. Guy Stanley couldn’t leave London for Australia to see after his mother — his first child was due any moment. Phryne arrived in London safely, but her plane did not — she wouldn’t be returning to Australia by air. The stock market crashed. Prudence returned home from the hospital. The crash worsened and spread worldwide. Prudence relapsed. Prudence improved slightly. Prudence fretted. 

Finally, Phryne took charge. 

Jack received the following telegram: 

“Aunt P must come to London STOP Recover and see grandchild STOP My darling Jack you must travel with her STOP Yours Phryne” 

Prudence agreed. On one condition. 

* * *

“Lord Winslow, have you met my niece’s husband, Inspector John Robinson?” Prudence was in her element. This world of rules and social refinement might be fading, but tonight, in this elegant ship’s ballroom, the men wore fitted tuxedos and the ladies fine gowns, and no one talked of money, or failing health, or loss of Empire. The surfaces gleamed. All was well. 

Jack played the part. 

* * *

The evening wound down. Jack escorted Prudence to her cabin, turned on the lights, and made certain she had water and her medicine close at hand. 

“Goodnight Mrs. Stanley,” he said. 

“My dear,” she responded. “Would you sit with me for a moment longer.” 

“Shall I call for the ship’s doctor?” 

“No. I’ll be alright in a moment. I’m a bit dizzy. It’s been a thrilling evening.” 

Jack nodded. He poured a whiskey for himself and joined Prudence in the sitting area. 

“Not long now,” he said, making small talk. “With the Suez behind us, we’ll make good time.” 

“You must miss her terribly,” Prudence said. 

Jack nodded again, then took a sip from his glass. 

“Will you marry her?” 

“That’s really up to her, Mrs. Stanley. She knows how I feel.” 

“Then you’ve asked her?” 

“Not in so many words, no. She’s made her position on the institution of marriage quite clear.” 

“I don’t understand it,” Prudence said vehemently. “There’s nothing wrong with the institution of marriage when one makes the right match. I was proud to become Mrs. Edward Stanley. I still am.” 

“Phryne sees things differently,” Jack replied calmly. “You should ask her to explain her view.” 

“Explain,” Prudence repeated with a bit of a wry laugh. “Do you understand her explanation?” 

“Well enough. I love her, and know she loves me. That has nothing to do with what we call ourselves in public.” 

Prudence shook her head ruefully. “I don’t know what I once thought, Inspector, but now that I _know_ you, I think _you_ may be too good for her.” 

Jack replied with a smile. “If you knew her better, Aunt Prudence, you’d see that she’s too good for me.” 

Jack finished his whiskey, then gave Prudence a familial kiss on the cheek. 

“Good night, Mrs. Stanley. I’ll see you at breakfast.” 


	2. Scenes from The Cadogan Hotel, London

“You told Aunt P all of that?” Phryne asked with a laugh. “I’ve never talked to her that frankly about the institution of marriage, much less her own marriage, and with no more than a single tumbler of whiskey for protection.” 

“It was a very long trip,” Jack said simply. 

They were ensconced at The Cadogan Hotel in Knightsbridge, London. Phryne met their ship in Southampton, sent Prudence on her way to Guy and Isabella in a chauffeured Rolls, and kept Jack all to herself. They reached the hotel at two in the afternoon, went straight upstairs to her room, and hadn’t left the bed. 

Phryne pulled up the sheet to cover them both and nestled into Jack’s arms. 

“You’re a very good sport, my darling, and it sounds like you made her very happy.” 

“It’s not a hardship to pretend to be your husband,” he replied. 

“You may change your mind,” she laughed again. “Three weeks in England with the extended Fisher and Stanley families, a new baby, and all the holidays. I’m obligated. You’re not.” 

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, Phryne.” 

He held her close and closed his eyes. 

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” 

* * *

Hours later Phryne awoke to find Jack standing at the window overlooking Pont Street. “What time is it?” she yawned. 

“Eleven, maybe,” he answered. “I didn’t want to wake you.” 

Even in a half-awake haze she could tell something important had shifted in Jack’s mood. 

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked. “I can get dressed.” 

“I can wait until morning.” 

“Don’t be silly, Jack. It’s London. Something is open. Let’s go out.” 

* * *

The December night was cold but clear. The sidewalks of Piccadilly were crowded with theater patrons and Friday night revelers. They found an Italian café on a side street, away from the bright lights and rumbling buses. 

Jack remained unusually quiet through the meal. They lingered over coffee and dessert, holding hands silently across the table and watching people hurry past the front window to whatever destinations may be in their paths. 

“No one knows me here,” he said finally. His face was mask. His tone enigmatic. 

Phryne took a stab in the dark. 

“Were you here before?” she asked, her voice gentle and warm. 

“London?” he said. “Briefly. At the end. Before we mustered home. One of so many.” 

“Anonymity was rather welcome then, for me, in Paris,” she said. “Initially anyway. It was the first step in re-imagining myself. Post-war Phryne.” 

Jack nodded, acknowledging her experience, although it wasn’t his own. “I wasn’t free that way. I was different, but people only saw the outside — my role, my rank, the name and title on my uniform — interchangeable with any other shell of a man on that sidewalk.” His tone grew angry as he drew deeper into the remembrance. 

“It’s not true, Jack.” She gripped his hand more tightly and focused her considerable powers of concentration towards holding his gaze. “It may be how the army looked at it — interchangeable numbers of soldiers, not individuals — but it’s not how I look at it. Then, or now.” 

* * *

A later morning. Breakfast at the Cadogan. Toast, croissant and tiny glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice. Phryne glanced through the morning paper. 

“Theater tonight?” she asked. “Shaw? Or Oscar Wilde? I doubt we’ll get away once we’re in the bosom of my family.” 

“Whatever you prefer, darling.” Jack was agnostic at present. 

“I can look for Shakespeare.” Phryne ran a finger down the page, scanning the fine print of the listings. “You know he was arrested here?” 

“Shakespeare?” Jack teased. 

“Oscar Wilde,” Phryne answered, her tone a bit playful, as if she were sharing a new bit of gossip about a common friend rather than a newspaper headline from 1895. “Dragged out of his room by the police and sentenced to hard labor.” 

“For…, um…” Jack stammered, unsure what euphemism was appropriate for the dining room of the establishment in question. 

“For refusing to live his entire life undercover,” Phryne responded, her voice now clear and defiant. “For loving who he wanted to love. For not hiding or apologizing for who he was.” 

Jack smiled and held her gaze. He loved her like this. He would have kissed her, soundly, if they weren’t in public. 

“So the Wilde play, then,” he said matter-of-factly, after a long beat. 

Phryne broke into a wide smile, understanding all the nuances of Jack’s response, spoken and unspoken. “I’ll have the concierge get the tickets.” 

* * *

A later evening. In bed again, on a night when making love took precedence over any of the other entertainments London had to offer. 

“What was it like when you first came to London? After the money, and the title. Did you feel like a different person?” 

Phryne sat up, the sheet falling from her torso, closing her eyes to remember fully. 

“It felt a bit like playing dress-up at first — the clothes, the shoes, the stockings. We had done that bit of the routine before, Janey and I. It was our holiday present from Aunt P every year — nice clothes to wear to the family gathering.” 

“That was generous,” Jack answered. 

“Yes, well, the clothes stayed at her house, you see. We weren’t allowed to bring them home to Collingwood at the end. But, yes, it was generous of Aunt P, in her own way.” 

Phryne never expressed resentment. Jack honestly didn’t know how she had avoided the poison. 

“But here we, well I, got to keep the clothes. Still do.” Phryne laughed, her deep and honest full-body laugh. “The rest of it — the manners, the “airs and graces” as my father calls it — it was like learning a new language. I rather enjoyed the puzzle of it at first.” 

Jack sat up and wrapped her in his embrace. “And underneath?” 

Phryne turned her head, running a hand along his jaw line, then bringing him close for kiss. 

“I’ve always been the same person underneath, darling.” Then she smiled as the perfect teasing response formed instantly in her brain. “There’s only one Phryne Fisher.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my one and only extended trip to London, I stayed at the [Cadogan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadogan_Hotel). And with the Oscar Wilde historical connection, well, how could I resist?


	3. The Fisher House

“What do you mean, Mother?” 

Phryne's voice rose in volume through the open door of the solarium and carried easily to the breakfast table in the adjoining room. 

She was agitated, Jack realized, but hadn’t hit full anger. They hadn’t been in the Fisher house twenty-four hours yet. 

Dinner — Jack’s formal introduction to Margaret Fisher — had passed pleasantly enough, and there was no consternation over sleeping arrangements — although Jack had been perfectly prepared to sleep in a different room than Phryne if required — there were more than enough bedrooms in this rented great house to accommodate dozens more guests — 

“What in the world made you think we were planning an engagement party?” 

Full anger reached. 

Jack pushed his chair back. 

“I wouldn’t go in there,” Henry Fisher said, looking up briefly from his newspaper. 

“I believe it concerns me,” Jack replied. 

“Not exactly, my boy,” Henry responded. “You’re a convenient placeholder in my wife’s fevered imagination. 

Jack scowled but stayed seated. 

“Not in my mind, you understand. I know you, Inspector. I’ve had the experience of seeing you and Phryne together on your home turf, as it were.” 

Voices in the solarium remained muffled. No doors were slammed. 

“My wife, on the other hand, not knowing you as I do, can’t quite fathom why a man would accompany her sister Prudence on a long ocean voyage, posing as her daughter’s husband, spend a good week or so in a fine London hotel secreted away with this same daughter, and then come here, for the holidays…” 

Jack interrupted the litany. “Please, Baron, I understand where this is headed.” 

“Do you?” he replied forcefully. “And call me Henry, Jack. I’ve told you that. More tea?” 

Jack nodded silently. 

“Where was I? Yes. My wife can’t understand why a man — any man, you see, not you, specifically — would come here, posing quite happily as her daughter’s husband for strangers on ships and in hotels, without having some plans to turn that ruse into the truth. Can you understand her position, Jack?” 

All the easy confidence that had allowed him to discuss the nuances of the matter with Prudence onboard ship escaped him here, at Baron Fisher’s breakfast table. 

“Yes, sir,” he assented. “Yes, sir. I can.” 

* * *

“Mother finally took no for an answer.” 

They were outside now, having offered to take Margaret’s dogs, two bounding Springer spaniels, out for a romp across the estate grounds. 

“She’s never understood me, Jack.” 

Guy and Isabella had arrived shortly after breakfast, Prudence and new baby Lillian in tow. The ensuing hubbub had mercifully cut the short further public discussion of an engagement party. 

“After all this time, she holds on to a fantasy of who I should be, of what role a daughter should play. My father, for all his innumerable faults…” Phryne drew the word out here, innumerable, practically singing a new tone on each syllable. “At least my father knows who I am. Even if it never influenced his behavior.” 

Jack walked beside her, listening, letting her talk as long as she needed. 

After a while, she fell silent, with only the sound of their footfalls, in synch, against the frozen ground, dogs barking madly in the far distance. 

“Would you like to leave?” he asked, keeping his tone even so as not to betray his own preference, one way or the other. 

“No,” she said gently, “That wouldn’t be fair to Prudence, or Guy, or even baby Lillian. This might be our only Christmas all together.” 

“Do you want to get married Phryne?” he asked, his tone even, but gentle. “I’ve never come out and asked you, you know.” 

Phryne turned to him and smiled, a wide teasing smile that lit up her entire person. “How romantic, Inspector…” 

He flustered, her sudden, enthusiastic pivot throwing him for just a minute, as it once did, more frequently, in the days of their first acquaintance. 

She smiled more broadly at his reaction, knowing that she could still occasionally throw him off balance. 

Jack laughed heartily, catching up to the game, then pulled her into his arms. 

“Is that a yes, then?” he teased. 

“Ask me again in Melbourne,” she responded with a kiss. “Or maybe I’ll surprise you someday, and ask you first.” 

He deepened their kiss, hoping to show how eagerly he would agree to that proposition. 

“But not here,” she said. “Not just because my mother wants a show. It’s too important for that.” 

They walked a little further before she continued. 

“Do you understand, darling?” she asked, taking his hand. 

“Enough,” he replied. And it was enough. 

* * *

Dusk had fallen and the house had grown quiet before dinner. Isabella napping with the baby. Phryne’s father dozing in a chair. Phryne’s mother out again with her dogs. Jack and Prudence huddled in a corner of the drawing room over a game of draughts, the only sound the light tap of game pieces against the board. 

Guy motioned to Phryne to follow him into the dining room for an early drink. 

“No engagement party?” Guy teased. “I’m dreadfully disappointed. I had mother pack my Bluebeard costume in one of her trunks. And I did so want to see your Cleopatra again.” 

Phryne smirked. She did appreciate his humor, but that night, and all that followed, seemed so long ago. She searched for an appropriate riposte, but wasn’t truly in the mood. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, cousin,” she said finally, her words an apology for the lack of a game more than the loss of her costume’s reprise. 

“You’re taking this all to seriously,” Guy responded. “I do like your Inspector — and find it most amusing that he and my mother are now the best of pals — but your mother is not that hard to please, Phryne. Play the role.” 

Phryne poured her drink, then set her features in a mask of pure Fisher determination. “The role on offer is dutiful daughter. I’ll pass, all the same.” 

(Determination was the most positive name for this Fisher family trait, let’s be clear. Many a person on the opposite end of Henry Fisher’s display of same would have called it stubborn cussedness, and they wouldn’t be wrong.) 

Guy knew his cousin, and the various flavors of familial rebellion, well enough not be deterred. 

“You think your mother should know who you truly are? React to you as Phryne and not as daughter? I’m not sure why you would want that to be her role. My mother doesn’t know who I truly am, thank God.” 

“But now you have a daughter, Guy,” she responded quickly. 

“So I do,” he said, and poured a second whiskey. “Imagine that. All my friends said a son would be easier.” 

* * *

Jack looked up from the draughts board to witness Phryne and Guy’s conversation in the adjacent room. He couldn’t hear them, but he could tell that Phryne was on edge. 

“Inspector?” Prudence queried. 

Jack moved his game piece. “Apologies, Mrs. Stanley.” 

She followed his gaze to Phryne. 

“You shouldn’t let it trouble you, Inspector. Phryne and my sister have always had a contentious relationship. One holiday won’t change that.” 

“Have you spoken with her?” Jack asked. 

Prudence understood that he meant Margaret. “Yes. About dinner menus, and table decorations, and how long she and Henry might rent this estate. That’s how we best communicate in person.” 

“I see.” 

“There’s no great mystery, Inspector. My sister hasn’t learned the futility of using the present to try and fix the past. I have very little present left. I intend to focus on my grandchild.” 

* * *

“I’d like to do one thing for Lillian,” Phryne said to Guy, after they’d both moved on to another drink. “I’d like to set up a trust for her education — however she chooses to use it — university, travel, making art.” 

“That’s not necessary,” he answered. 

“Maybe not,” Phryne continued. “Maybe it’s more for me, than for her. But life is uncertain, money even more so. I’d feel better knowing that I’d secured that little bit of freedom for her in the future.” 

Guy smiled, sensing a way to get them back on a more lighthearted footing. “You have no problem playing the role of dutiful aunt?” 

“I suppose I don’t,” she laughed. “That’s a role I’ll happily choose.” 

* * *

That night. In bed with Jack. The darkness and quiet reducing the vast scope of the world to just the two of them again. No roles to play. 

“I always wanted her to leave him. Prudence would have taken us in.” she whispered. “It might be my earliest memory.” 

“And you blame her,” he answered, his voice without judgment. 

“I understand her,” she said. “Now. Well enough.” 

“But…,” he prompted. 

“She didn’t make the right choice, Jack. She let her love for Father block out every other consideration in her life. She should have chosen mother over wife.” 

There were no tears or anger, only resignation. 

Jack held her close and loved her. Her. Phryne Fisher. All of her. 

* * *

A morning. Later that week. 

The house was quiet. Phryne stole a moment with baby Lillian in the nursery when no one else was around. She held her niece tightly in her arms, the baby’s head resting on her shoulder. 

“You are your own person, Lillian Stanley,” she whispered. “Never let anyone tell you otherwise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone. You're the most lovely audience I've ever had the pleasure to write for :-)


End file.
